The Autobag Patents disclose a packaging technique in which a chain of interconnected open plastic bags are used. In the earliest commercial form a roll of these bags was mounted on a mandrel and the mandrel was positioned in a box. A blower was connected to the box. Bags were dispensed by feeding them closed end first, out of a slot in the box. Air from the blower exiting through the same slot would inflate each bag as it came out of the box. A product was manually inserted into the inflated bag and the bag was separated from the chain. The loaded and separated bag was then usually closed and heat sealed.
The boxes used in the described earliest commercial form were disposable shipping containers that also served as dispensing containers. As a next step in the evolution of equipment for effecting packaging with a chain of open bags on a roll, manually controlled dispensing machines were developed. Each machine was adapted to receive a coil of interconnected open bags. The bags were fed through a dispensing opening in the machine and then vertically downwardly along a path of travel. In a typical operation, after a bag had been blown open an operator would manually insert a product. The operator would then manually separate the loaded bag from the chain of bags and insert its open end into a heat sealer. Concurrently with the separation of the loaded bag the operator would feed the chain of bags to bring the next succeeding bag into the loading station.
More sophisticated automatic equipment has been developed for loading and sealing chains of open bags on a roll. An example of such equipment is that disclosed and claimed in the H-100 Patents. With that equipment, bags are automatically fed to a loading station. In addition, they are automatically sealed and separated from the chain after products have been loaded. The H-100 machines, like earlier machines until the invention of the Wig Wag Patent was made, used bags on a roll.
Manufacture of rolls of open bags has presented a problem. When the bags are used it is necessary to feed the bags closed end first. This has meant that as the bags have been wound into a coil they have been fed onto the coil being formed open end first. The bags must be fed quite slowly during a winding operation to avoid blowing the bags open excessively and tearing the web.
In order to achieve reasonable and efficient production speeds, bags have been fed closed end first during manufacture and coiled. Thereafter a "rewind" operation is performed at slow speeds to provide a finished coil from which bags are fed closed end first.
The Wig Wag Patent discloses a system by which bags were fed closed end first into a dispensing box and then dispensed on a first in--first out basis. To accomplish this, bags were arranged in a plicated array of horizontal layers. While this system has enjoyed some success, especially with relatively large bags, rewinding has continued to be used for most applications of Autobag products. While rewinding is expensive, in terms of overall efficiency it has proved to be more efficient than the approach of the "Wig Wag" Patent for many applications because forming a plicated array in accordance with the teaching of that patent--slows the overall bag formation operation.